Airport checks vulnerable to hackers, experts say

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, January 17, 2002

Terrorist hackers could exploit wireless networks used to check baggage at major airports -- including San Jose's -- according to network security experts.

However, those same experts are unclear on the extent of the risk, because thorough audits of wireless networks at airports have not taken place.

The issue is coming to the fore tomorrow, when all airlines are required to increase measures to prevent bomb-bearing luggage from getting onto airplanes. One acceptable measure, which airport officials said that American Airlines will be using at San Francisco International Airport and at San Jose's Norman Y. Mineta International Airport, is making sure that each passenger who checks in luggage actually boards the plane.

Some airlines are using a wireless technology standard -- known as "802.11. b" -- to transmit passenger information from the curbside check-in stations to the boarding gates. American is using the technology for such purposes at San Jose's airport.

Hackers have proved the standard to be vulnerable. By exploiting this acknowledged weakness, a terrorist with computer hacking skills could tamper with that information and sneak a bomb onto a plane unaccompanied, said Thubten Comerford, chief executive of White Hat Technologies in Westminster, Colo.

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"They might be able to have bags assigned to somebody else's luggage," he said. In such a scenario, a terrorist might check in a bag with a bomb inside, then sit in the airport or in a car and use a laptop to break into the airline's baggage system and assign the bag to another passenger.

Hackers could also use a wireless network as a steppingstone for breaking into other airline systems, such as the reservation system, said Joe Weiss, vice president of the network applications division at Airinc, a communications technology firm owned cooperatively by the major airlines. The chance of such a break-in taking place depends on the security measures taken by each individual airline, he said.

"It does present a passenger risk," Weiss said.

In a recent test arranged by Computerworld magazine, hackers using wireless laptops at the airport easily tapped into the wireless network used by American Airlines curbside check-in agents at San Jose and Denver international airports. The information was not encrypted, said Jonas Luster, co-founder of D-fensive Networks in Campbell, who conducted the San Jose test, and Comerford, of White Hat Technologies, who conducted the Denver test.

American is one of several airlines that have been testing wireless networks at the curbside, said Weiss. Southwest Airlines also uses wireless at nine locations nationwide, said spokeswoman Beth Harbin, but it is not known whether Southwest's wireless networks could be compromised as easily as American's were. United and Northwest Airlines did not return calls for this story.

Security experts say that the wireless networks available now are inherently insecure, even when encryption is used.

"Any time you're using wireless (networks), . . . it is a security risk," said Mandy Andress, president of ArcSec, a San Mateo security company. The standard wireless equipment on the market uses flawed encryption that can easily be cracked by people who know what they're doing, she said. New, improved technologies to protect wireless networks are expected to be released this year, but until then, there are a few temporary fixes that can decrease the chances of someone breaking in, she said.

But American was apparently not using available precautions, Luster and Comerford said.

American Airlines spokesman Gus Whitcomb said that Luster and Comerford exaggerated the security risk because their companies provide security services.

"They have a vested interest in trying to make mountains out of mole hills to drive up demand for their products," he said.

American is working on fixing the problems that the security experts revealed, he said.

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